The Forgotten Lake

It was a Friday night and with the bank holiday weekend in store it would be a great chance to wet a line. With a works party going on at the syndicate I decided to go off in pursuit of carp on a new water which I had stumbled across on google earth. When I found the lake I searched the internet to see what information I could across but nothing was revealed.

The lake was completely isolated; no houses, shops or signs of life anywhere nearby. With it being bank holiday I gave my good friend Alex a call, I knew he wouldn't be in work over the weekend so it would be a good chance for us to spend sometime on the bank together. After a good catch up on the past couple of weeks fishing the conversation drifted to his new water. Based on what I had seen on the internet this lake looked no more than half an acre in size at the most, consequently we decided to go as mobile as possible; one rod, a bucket of bait & an unhooking mat.

We met early Saturday morning not too far from the lakes location and convoyed the remainder of the journey. On arrival to the lake we were greeted by one of the most idilic waters you could imagine. An overgrown, weedy and well matured water situated in the heart of a woodland. With no signs up to say no fishing we grabbed the polaroids and went off in search of some fish. On only our second lap we had managed to spot two old, scale perfect commons drifting out from under the weed. Who would have thought in a lake like this, in the heart of nowhere would live a small number of carp? With the cars parked up only a short distance away we shot round to pick up some kit. A stalking rod loaded with a Nash Bread Bomb and size ten Nash Fang Uni hook was the chosen choice of tactic for both of us.

Armed with an extra thick loaf of bread each we crept round to the far side of the lake again where we had seen the shows. In the time that had been used to grab the kit the sun had appeared from behind the clouds, this significantly improved the clarity of the water which aided carp spotting. What had originally just been two old commons had materialised into four commons and a mint old mirror all positioned on the end of the weed. I loaded my bread bomb and had the first flick, it wasn't long before I was into my first carp from the forgotten lake. There was no surprise when I managed to slip the fish over the net to see a pristine little common sulking at the bottom. Following the take it was difficult to locate the fish despite the lake being so small. It was at this point we decided to regroup by the cars, taking the time to have some well earned lunch and watch the water in hope that the fish would give themselves away again.

What seemed like ages passed before Alex managed to spot the mirror cruising around the edge of the pads. Grabbing his Nash 6ft Dwarf he shot round to the pads, creeping through the woodland and sneaking into place. As Alex moved into place I was able to point out where the mirror was as the reeds surrounding the pads were too high for Alex to be able to track the carp's movements. I pointed out the fish on the left of the pads, a perfect cast first time positioned the bread right in the path of the fish. A matter of seconds later and the water erupted as Alex bent into his first fish from the forgotten lake. After a hairy fight through the pads Alex had managed to land the little mirror, an absolute belter.

Once again the commotion caused all of the fish to back off. Packing the kit into the car we decided to head elsewhere in search of fish. However, prior to leaving we did one last lap, the fish had once again come out. We spotted around ten small forgotten carp in this stunning water and although most had eluded us it would not be long before we would make another trip to the Forgotten Lake.